Category Archives: Tampa Bay

Due to server issues created by me over-doing music embeds and such, I’m going to have to repost the Top 100 lists of songs from Music Tampa Bay’s top 100 for 2017 & 2008.

Originally, the lists (which are both divided into several parts) worked okay and everyone had access, but it would seem my hosting company has tightened standards on the shared-server hosting system.

When the lists are reposted, they’ll simply be a text-and-link based list, a-la the 2016 Top 100 list.

UPDATE June 19, 2018: Both the Music Tampa Bay 2008 and 2017 Top 100 lists are now operational again. It required some changes to this web site on eh back end but things are working at the moment. All media that could be found was linked to while we sites or social media accounts representing the musical groups (that could be found) were also linked to.

In 2005, I penned a blog post that was inspired by the then-St. Petersburg Times had written an epic feature regarding the days of Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, had spent living in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. Being a Morrison fan and living only a handful of miles away from locations mentioned in the piece, I was blown away. I had known about Morrison having been born in south Florida but I didn’t know about this.

Part of what inspired the blog post was the fact social media wasn’t then what it is today. Not that writing a blog post was going to necessarily draw eyeballs. Yet to this day, Missing piece of history – Jim Morrison in Clearwater still draws web traffic because of Morrison’s romantic interest (and song inspiration) Mary Werbelow.

At any rate, to get to the point, the now- Tampa Bay Times has basically failed with how they treat their archives online, which now hides the articles on a for-profit site (…unless the Times plans to fix their “Page Not Found” issues on archival articles). Between this and my old blog post failure in being more direct and obvious on the link to the feature section from September 25, 2005, finding the feature reading is next to impossible.

I can’t recall the last time the threat of rain and weather was in place chronically over the Tampa Bay region. I’m not talking the typical summer storms, which brings rainfall either in the early morning or evening hours, but through the day. It was why, I think(?), Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Washington Capitals was held at Centro Ybor instead of park facilities like the other games in the 2018 playoffs.

All of that being said, the Lightning just announced that a watch party event for Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals will be held at Curtis Hixon Park in Tampa, the exact details are quoted below:

Game 6 – Monday, May 21

Curtis Hixon Park – downtown Tampa
Lightning Playoff Watch Party
Event begins at 6:00 pmThree screens for fans to watch the game on

As it currently stands, the potential-storm conditions remain for the greater Tampa Bay area. I have not seen the percent-chance of rain but I have seen icons marking the day as threatened. I don’t know how this will play into the evening. It’s jsut something to keep in mind if planning to attend the official party.

Like I’ve asked, if you know of an unofficial watch party going on, you may want to contact me (or use comments) to announce the location and share it with readers.

I don’t know if it’s a casual fan base element, bandwagon fans or actually faithful of the Tampa Bsy Lightning who put on the panic hats if and when the Lightning struggle or fail to win… I know there’s an element of the die-hard fans who are like this – one of them is a good friend of mine – but I do know they have come out of the woodwork during the Lightning’s Eastern Conference Final series with the Washington Capitals after the disappointing opening games of the series.

To those who are crying that the Lightning are missing a piece of the puzzle in the roster, I’d like to welcome you to hockey or to the Tampa Bay Lightning from your original team. What’s worth citing as missing is your experience as a Bolts fan and your knowledge of the Tampa Bay Lightning roster and what it’s capable of.

As the title says, the Bolts have formally announced two watch party locations for games 3 and 4 of the 2018 NHL Eastern Conference Finals. They are posted below.

I still wish to know, for the sake of the fans, if there are venues — unofficial — holding watch party events tied to the Lightning’s playoff run. I’ve asked this question during the first two rounds of playoff action and also on public forums with no response. You would think a sports bar or two would try to make the most of an opportunity and expose themselves to the masses with watch party events (be it during Lightning road or home games).

If you do know of a venue for unofficial watch party events, please leave a comment or use the site contact form to let me know.

Game 3 – Tuesday, May 15

Centro Ybor – 7th Avenue
Lightning Playoff Watch Party
Event begins at 6:00 p.m.Three screens for fans to watch the game on

Note: While all watch parties have been outdoor, this is different. It’s also a wise choice as weather conditions early in the week forthcoming are expected to have rain and storms. Forecasts may change but…maybe not.

Game 4 – Thursday, May 17

Curtis Hixon Park – downtown Tampa
Lightning Playoff Watch Party
Event begins at 6:00 pmThree screens for fans to watch the game on

No telling if an impromptu watch party will be announced if a game 6 is necessary or takes place.

Now, I don’t know how the Times operates its archives as this happened last year, I don’t know if the Times will be repairing the issue or took one of my suggested “save a dime” strategies and pulled down every archived article and feature, but as of this writing what all published pieces from sptimes.com (be they features, general news, columns or editorial content) are now unavailable and listed as “Not Found”.

There is an oddity here though: The base domain URL, www.sptimes.com is working and not as a redirect to the newspaper’s current web presence. It is standing as it had once stood but not exactly working nor posted as the front page of the newspaper from days gone by. The footer of the page reads the copyright date as 2009.

Because one page is “working” as a shell of itself, I’m guessing that this is an IT foul-up that stopped functionality and not an upgrade attempt, closure of the site archives, or an import-to-tampabay.com attempt. Simply, it’s a foul up that the paper may just dismiss as not important to fix. After all, they’re not making money off the archives, they’re not even trying.

UPDATE July 28, 2018: sptimes.com, in general, is now showing a 404 error. That being said, if you can find the original URL for an article/feature from the site you wish to access/read you can. You just need to utilize the Wayback Machine in order to do it.

I only crossed it this morning but NBC Sports revealed the top 10 markets for broadcasts of the 1st round of the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs on Twitter Tuesday afternoon. Those top 10 are listed in the tweet below and my thoughts and such are below it:

With the 2018 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs underway, I was wondering if there are any watch parties taking place with the Tampa Bay Lightning playing at home at Amalie Arena? Not everyone can attend games, after all, and trying to rile up fans to cheer together would be a plus.

I don’t know if Game 2 against he New Jersey Devils will have any watch-party encounters by venues in and around the greater Tampa Bay metro area… I do know that the Bolts will be hosting their own watch party events on Monday, Aprile 16 and Wednesday, April 18th for games 3 and 4 when the Lightning play the Devils at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

The following scheduling and locations were released by the team on Friday afternoon in a press release:

Note: This one will be a little odd if not totally appropriate with thanks to temperatures. As it stands right now, the forecast is for a cold front to pass through Tampa Bay on Sunday with high tempeatures for Monday set to be only 65 degrees. Add normal, windy conditions on the waterfront on Clearwater Beach and it might get a bit chilly. Totally appropriate for a hockey game though…

To be fair to begin and give context, this piece is inspired by a ranking that was done in The Sacremento Bee, so it’s a reaction column inspired by an opinion piece. By way of opinionated reactions to the opinionated ranking, let me give you my own opinion:

If there had been a 33rd uniform ranking, Bucco Bruce would rank below it. Bad uniforms and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have a history that goes hand-in-hand with the mediocrity of the club and its lackluster competitive prowess.